After nine years living in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, I'm now living in the French Alps. The natives seem friendly ...guess I'll stick around a while.

Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Totally Worth Waiting For (AKA Pimp My Garage)

After long silence, it has all built up to this moment:
STILL MORE HOME RENOVATIONS!!!!
And what is better than that? Nothing- duh!

We need more room in our home in order to welcome guests more comfy-cozily (pretty sure that's not a word, but it is so much cuter than just "comfortably"). This in mind, we ("we" in this case mainly consisting of Paul the Roumanian Magician) have attacked a new moumental project:
making a nice guest room with full bath in the upper story of our cavernous garage.

What used to be a closet next the the half bath on the landing now leads to a small, empty (for now) stairwell. The ladder there takes you to a soon-to-be-finished mini guest suit ( NB: not that it is intended only for smaller than average guests. The "mini" refers to the fact that it is just an average-sized bedroom with a bathroom thrown in. Non-palatial in nature.)
It is only 3/4 finished at this point, but I figured that a few "before and partially finished" photos are in order:

The new area only takes up half of the total upper floor of the garage. The other half is still desperately needed for storing all of our plenteous junk.
The little cement block you see at the right edge of the picture above is part of the closet that was later cut to provide a space for the new stairs to come up.

The above photo was taken at almost exactly the same spot as the one at the top. As you can see, the bathroom takes a chunk out of the space. But I think it's worth it.
In the left photo, the ladder is in the hole where the stairs will be installed. And I hope that happens soon, as the ladder is a pain.

This is the exterior wall where the window went in. It is by far the biggest window in the whole house. These old Savoyard homes were built to keep the heat in and that meant tiny baby windows.